Into the Wastes
by Setaflow
Summary: Rendered unconscious from his fight with Zarkon, Shiro wakes up on a desolate planet, injured and alone. With his friends gone and his arm malfunctioning, he's forced to accept the help of a wary stranger in order to make it back to his friends in one piece-and alive. (Takes place immediately post Season 2)
1. Chapter 1

**This is basically stemming from the sole idea of "put Shiro in a scenario where his arm isn't working" and see where it goes from there.**

 **Please enjoy!**

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It was cold. That was the first thing that Shiro noticed. It was cold and silent and dark as he wrenched his eyes open and was met with blackness in front of his nose. He took a ragged breath, his lungs wheezing as though they hadn't been used in centuries. He breathed out; the air hit the glass on his visor and fogged up immediately.

Next came a cough as Shiro forced his lungs to get back to work. His body protested by sending sharp spikes of pain up into his chest, and it suddenly became a battle to try and even suck in air. His visor was closed, and Shiro didn't dare open it until he could get his bearings. He had no idea if opening his helmet would cause him to collapse in on himself. Space was a freaking nightmare when it wanted to be.

The memories of what had happened to get himself into this position were hazy at best, because a lot of things had gone down. It was coming back to him in chunks, but at least it was coming back to him, and Shiro was undyingly grateful for that, at least.

Voltron…a giant robot…the Black Lion...wings… a blazing sword…a _lot_ of pain…and suddenly he was weightless, as if he'd been ejected into the void. He must've passed out somewhere around that time, because he really couldn't remember much past that. The last thing that he could recall were Keith and Lance screaming in one ear and Hunk and Pidge screaming in the other, and then…nothing. Shiro wasn't sure if he was relived about that revelation or absolutely terrified by it.

His gasping finally under control, Shiro took a deep breath to steady himself. The cold air seemed to go directly back into his brain, and the more he breathed in, the straighter Shiro could feel himself think. It was calming, reassuring. Shiro clung to that feeling like a life preserver.

Mentally, Shiro began checking himself. It was strange, because he felt both weightless and pinned down. He couldn't move his legs at all (though he could curl his toes, the only conformation that his bottom half was indeed still attached to his body), and his left arm barely shifted in place. His right arm was unresponsive, which was probably the most infuriating. It would have been so easy to activate his hand and just cut through whatever situation he was in, but _no_. it just _had_ to be annoying. Shiro bit back an exasperated sigh and continued to assess his situation.

Curious, Shiro made a fist with his left hand and felt his hand curl around something. Even though his fingers were numb and he was absolutely freezing, he could still feel the cold wetness through his gloved hand. When he released it, the substance he had held still lingered on his hand, bitter and stinging. It crunched too. It almost felt like-

 _Snow_ , Shiro thought, amazed. _I'm buried under snow._ That explained why he felt so buoyant, yet also felt buried at the same time.

Immediately, he had to fight the urge to dig straight up as fast as he could. That was Garrison survival training 101; never dig straight down, because you'll bury yourself into your grave. Instead, Shiro mustered up a wad of saliva and spit it as straight as possible. It hit the front of his visor and slid horizontal across the glass to the right, almost perfectly tracing the reflection of the large scar that ran across the bridge of his nose.

That meant that the way up was above him on his left. Well, perfect, because his left arm seemed to be his best working arm at the moment. Shiro shook his shoulder to dislodge some of the looser snow around him and started digging. It wasn't long before the wet powder had seeped through his hand and even up into his arm, making the experience go from uncomfortable to excruciating in a matter of minutes. The only positive aspect of his situation was that the snow Shiro was clearing wasn't tightly packed, or else he could say his prayers and succumb to being the first human that actually got frozen in an ice block.

After several minutes of digging and wiggling, Shiro finally felt his hand break the surface. He felt around on the top of the snow and, pressing his hand as far into the powder as he dared, heaved himself up to the surface with a grunt. It felt very much like pulling himself out of deep water, mentally and physically. Shiro crawled away from the hole that his body had made and collapsed on his back to stare up at the sky, weak and panting.

He took off his helmet first, letting his shock of white hair fall across his eyes. When he breathed, he watched it stir slightly, then settle, as if it too was tired from the ordeal. It was a battle to keep his eyes open because it seemed that his eyelids wanted nothing more than to close for a couple of months. His helmet rolled out of his hands, but Shiro couldn't care less. Now that he wasn't in danger of suffocating, Shiro felt oddly ecstatic to be surrounded by snow, to be laying in it again, to feel the chill work its way up the back of his neck. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen rain, never mind snow. It seemed like a blessing he would never see again, even if it annoyed him with the various ways it impeded his life back on Earth.

God, he missed Earth.

Shiro closed his eyes at last, suddenly feeling weighed down all over again. He exhaled, knowing that his breath was heading to the atmosphere of whatever planet he was stuck on. His finger stroked the snow under his hand, missing the sensation like an old friend.

If it were up to him, Shiro would've just laid down in the snow for the rest of his life until he shriveled up and died, but his damn survival instincts moved for him instead. Shiro rolled over and pushed himself onto his knees, taking in his surroundings for the first time.

Wherever he was, it wasn't Earth. It wasn't a planet he had been to, either. Hell, it didn't even look like a planet. Planets had life on them, but this? Snow stretched out as far as his eye could see, whiting out the landscape across every horizon. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and Shiro had a creeping suspicion that snow was a common occurrence on this place. The terrain on all sides of him was uneven, hills and mountains raising out of the ground like the teeth of a giant beast. Shiro himself had crawled out of a mountainside, and unfolding below him was a great valley that looked more like a sea than a landscape. It was nighttime, and green and purple hues colored the night sky above him. There were multiple moons that hung in the air, some close, some far. Shiro counted eight in his view, but he suspected there might have been one or two hiding behind one of those peaks. With no light source anywhere on this planet, the stars had come out in full force, each a tiny pinprick on the dark canvas.

When he'd boarded the castleship God knows how long ago, Shiro had gone straight to Coran and started to keep a list of the constellations he saw in the different galaxies he'd encountered in case he ever got lost and needed to get his bearings. Well, here was a perfect opportunity to put his new knowledge into action, and he was drawing blanks. No matter how hard Shiro stared or squinted or traced the paths between the stars in his mind, he couldn't find any pattern that seemed familiar to him.

A list of questions sprang up in his mind. First, where was he? Second, how did he get here? Third, what the hell had happened? Forth, what happened to everyone else? Fifth, where did he go from here?

As he sat there pondering those questions, something odd struck Shiro. He whipped around, studying his surroundings. His hole that he had emerged from was the only blemish across miles and miles of snow as far as the eye could see. There were no ships in the sky, not even Galra cruisers (not that Shiro was exactly eager to be hitching a ride on a ship that would surely land him back into enemy hands). Even worse, the Black Lion was nowhere to be seen. That was what burned a hole in the pit of Shiro's stomach, because he'd spent so long just trying to get the Black Lion to trust him. He'd finally done that, and now everything had slipped right out of his hands.

Oh God, what if Zarkon had the Black Lion?

Shiro stubbornly pushed the thought into the back of his mind, because he knew that nothing good would come from dwelling on it.

Sighing, Shiro lifted his nose back to the stars. They were quite lovely. Bright specks on light that, despite all odds, shone through light years of distance. It was oddly encouraging. Shiro used to hear philosophic shit like that all the time from Matt when he was dragged to the roof of the Garrison to go stargazing. Earth views were never as good as these were.

There was that aching nostalgia again. That longing for Earth that burned a hole through his heart each time he thought about it, until his blood would simply stop pumping. Shiro shoved that thought to the back of his mind too. It wouldn't do him any good to focus on the past.

Shiro allowed himself one more bitter sigh before standing. As he did so, his right arm swung limply at his side. Confused, Shiro shook it. It jostled a little at his side, but that was about it. He tried activating his hand, but it remained motionless.

"You can't be serious," Shiro whispered to himself as he grabbed his right wrist with his good hand and held it up to his nose.

When he was given this prosthetic replacement of the three-forths of his right arm that had been taken away by the Galra, it had worked so seamlessly that there would be some days that Shiro would forget that his arm was almost entirely mechanical now. Now was not the time to be appreciating that technological wonder. Shiro tried flexing his arm, bending his elbow, even curling his fingers. But his mechanical arm refused to respond, as if it were dead in his hand.

For the first time since waking up, Shiro felt a genuine stab of terror. His dominant hand—not to mention his only means of self-defense—was now completely useless, more of a liability now than anything. He let it drop out of his grip, and it fell back to his side and danced in the air like a wind chime. He didn't even feel anything, which gave Shiro two scenarios. Either his brain's neurological connection to his hand had been severed when he landed on the planet, or his arm had poo-pooed on him at the worst time and needed to be replaced. Neither was a fabulous solution to his problem when he was stranded alone.

Oh shit, where were the others?

Shiro seized his helmet and stuffed it back on his head (albeit awkwardly; it was hard to do with only one hand) and turned on his radio. His visor's screen came to life, blinking and beeping in his ears as it searched for a signal.

"Princess?" Shiro croaked into his coms. "Keith? Pidge? Hello? Is anyone there?"

But only static greeted him.

Fighting down panic, Shiro switched to a new station to increase his frequency and began again. "Is there anyone out there? I've been stranded on this…this planet. I don't know where I am. Please, if you hear this…please send help."

Halfway through his broadcast, he wanted to curse into his radio because if the Galra were listening, then they'd be descending on his location with outstretched talons. He'd given only the bare minimum of details, but nothing that would help get him off the planet. Shiro wanted to pound the ground and scream his frustrations to the sky, but he was down to one good arm. It had been a long time since Shiro had felt this irrationally angry, and even though it was mostly at himself, he couldn't help but think back to what he could remember of the battle.

There had been several screams, and he could pick out each of the other paladins by voice alone. There was another scream, too, one besides that. It was female. Allura? Coran had mentioned that her life-force was tied to the Lions the first day that she had met them. Perhaps she was feeling their pain? Could the Lions even _feel_ pain? They were machines. Sentient machines, but Shiro had only ever worked with a machine that was built for a single purpose. Go here. Do that. He was still grappling with the idea that his spaceship could now communicate with him, never mind the idea that it could think and act of its own accord.

Before he could consider it for much longer, Shiro was literally slapped out of his thoughts when a large gust of wind hit him in the face and nearly knocked him over. He had to stagger backwards a few steps, his mechanical arm swinging uselessly.

All of the sudden, the cold weather seemed to catch up to Shiro. He became painfully aware of how little shelter he'd seen before him, and how little warmth his paladin armor actually provided him. His hand and feet were numb, and Shiro dully wondered whether frostbite was setting in. How long had he been lying there? Long enough for snow to trap him a few feet below the ground, apparently.

It then struck him that if it had snowed enough to cover him, then it could very much snow again. He couldn't walk through a snowstorm like this, with his body temperature already dangerously low.

"Move," Shiro said softly. He treated it like a command, hoping that it would trigger some sort of Pavlovian impulse in him, but his feet stood firmly rooted to the ground.

Where would he go?

Shiro stared at the great expanse in the valley below him, then back towards the peak of the mountain he was stranded on. Heat rose, so if he went upwards he might just warm up a little. Plus, there was definitely nothing for him if he went down. At least if he headed up and over the mountain, Shiro could find something that would be better suited to his chances for survival.

His mind made up, Shiro turned and began his long trudge up the mountainside. He passed the hole he was buried in without a second glance backwards.

The road upwards was shaky and precarious. Shiro didn't realize just how debilitating it was to be down an arm, and his lack of coordination paired beautifully with the waist deep snow that seemed to pull him down further with every step. He found himself wobbly and uncontrolled, so much so that he snapped his visor fully closed. The last thing he wanted was to die from suffocation because he fell face first into the snow and couldn't free himself. What a way to go that would be.

The road was long, the travel draining. Each step sapped his energy and stole his breath. The air fogged up his glass visor and made it nigh impossible to see because he was breathing so rapidly. He wheezing into the open coms he had left on, desperately hoping for something to replace the persistent static buzzing in his ears.

By the time Shiro reached the peak, he felt like he'd bee walking for hours and had nothing to show for it. When he turned around, he could still see the shifted snow where he had emerged, miles and miles away. Before him, more mountain peaks. There were several in the immediate distance, and more concealed in the mist behind them, silhouetted and hiding in the depths of the oddly colored sky. The tallest mountain before him had a divot in the side of it's tallest point, as if something had crashed right through the rock and left an exit wound in it's side. It wasn't pretty, and it wasn't comforting. A knot in Shiro's chest tightened, and his legs seemed to get weaker at the mere sight of it. "Jesus…" he breathed, half in awe and half in despair.

" _Hello?"_

A voice on the end of his coms nearly cause him to jump out of his armor.

Shiro felt his pulse start racing, almost not believing he'd heard something. A voice, out here, in the middle of the galactic equivalent of Antarctica? But before he could even consider the idea that he was hallucinating due to exhaustion, the voice popped up again, faint and overlaid with static. _"Hello? Does anyone copy?"_

"Hello? H-hey, who's there? Please, come in," Shiro practically yelled into the radio, all pretenses forgotten.

There was a pregnant pause before the voice piped up again. _"Hello? Who is this? What are you doing here?"_

Ignoring the voice's demands, Shiro instead pressed forward almost rabidly. "Who is this? Are you Galra?"

" _Galra?"_ the voice on the other end of the line was very feminine sounding. _"No, I'm not Galra. Are_ you _Galra?"_

"No," Shiro answered.

" _How can I know for sure?"_

"You can't," Shiro admitted, "and as much as it sounds absurd, you're just going to have to take my word for it."

Another pause. _"'Taking your word for it' isn't going to be enough for me to just outright trust you, you know."_

Deep down, Shiro knew that the voice's uneasiness was completely justified, especially if they weren't Galra. However, he was far beyond the point of caring. He wasn't daring to let his only source of aid strand him in the middle of a wasteland. "Look, you live on this planet, right?" he waved his arm around even though he knew the voice couldn't see him. "And if I came here, I'd have to be on a ship. Have you seen any Galra cruisers enter this planet's orbit?"

" _That's just it. We haven't seen_ any _ships enter the planet's orbit,"_ the voice said. _"So either you appeared on this planet out of thin air, or you snuck your little battle cruiser past our radars and are looking to find my location right now."_

The voice was not only being difficult—they were being secretive. They were very careful with their words, not letting an ounce of information that could be useful to Shiro be leaked out. It was enough to make him get to his knees and start begging. "You're right," Shiro said grudgingly. "All I remember was waking up, buried under snow so deep I could have made that my grave. I dug myself out and all I want is to find shelter before I freeze to death."

" _Who are you?"_ the voice interjected, sounding dubious.

"Not Galra," Shiro repeated, stubbornness getting the better of him.

" _I'm going to need a name before I even consider helping you, Mr. Not Galra."_

Shiro cursed under his breath. The last thing he wanted to do was give his actual name and awake to find the Galra carrying him back to the gladiator pits. His mind raced before finally settling on the only answer he could think of; "You can call me Holt."

God, Matt was going to murder him if he found out he was using his last name as an alias. _If I ever see Matt again_ , the irrational part of his brain (which, amazingly enough, was also the part of his brain that Shiro despised the most) told him.

" _I can call you Holt,"_ the voice mused. _"I can only assume that isn't your actual name?"_

Despite his bleak-looking future, Shiro couldn't help but smirk. "You asked for a name. You never asked for my name."

For a while, there was only static. It droned on for so long that Shiro thought he'd chased away his only chance at rescue for good before the voice returned, sounding equally as smug. _"Well, Holt, if that's the case, my radar station is classified as number 959229. So that's what you can call me."_

"That's a little long, don't you think?"

" _Take it or leave it, Holt."_

Desperation drove his next words out of his mouth before Shiro could stop them. "Listen…I-I was separated from my friends and I genuinely have no idea where I am. My arm is broken and my feet are going to freeze into solid blocks before the sun can even rise," Shiro broke off. "I can't make you trust me, but I need your help. Please."

The voice on the other end of his coms let out a pained noise, like it was thinking hard. " _You really are in trouble, aren't you,"_ it said. It wasn't an accusation, nor was it a taunt. It was just a statement. A defeated statement, like it pitied him.

"My right arm is a prosthetic, and I think it got broken when I landed here," Shiro confessed. "Please, I…you're the only person I've heard on this planet and I've been walking up the side of a mountain for an hour now, maybe longer. I have no idea what to do."

 _I have no idea what to do._

That thought hadn't crossed his mind since he was back in Galra captivity.

There was another long pause, and then… _"Alright, I'll help you,"_ the voice said, " _but this better not be a mistake, Holt."_

Shiro wanted to cry, but merely settled on a single "thank you" instead, nearly breathless with relief.

If the voice noticed his change in attitude, they ignored it. _"Alright, Holt, I need you to take a good look around and tell me exactly what you see. I can't find you on my radars, which isn't necessarily a bad thing because these pieces of junk were built for detecting ships and not singular life forms. It's got a five hundred jurblash radius, so hey, maybe you're closer to salvation than you think."_

Eyes cast to the horizon, Shiro began rattling off his surroundings. "I'm on top of a mountain and can see seven different peaks in front of me. Two of them are smaller than the other, and one of the taller ones has a chunk taken out of it's side-."

" _That's it!"_ the voice interjected. _"That mountain. Tell me, is the chuck missing on it's left or it's right side?"_

"Right."

The voice was silent for a moment, and the only sound on the other end of the radio was that off furious typing and faint beeps. It continued on for a little while before the voice returned, sounding vexed. _"Alright, Holt. I have good news, and I have bad news."_

"I'll take the bad news first, if that's alright with you."

More typing. _"The bad news is that there are more storms coming fast from the direction you just walked from. Big ones. You're going to need to find shelter, and you're going to need to find it fast, or else you really will get snowed into your grave."_

Shiro grimaced; the option of racing for his life through waist-deep powder wasn't entirely a fun one. "And the good news?" he inquired dryly.

" _Actually, there are two pieces of good news. If you're on the peak that I think you are, then you're about four hundred and ninety-three jurblashes away from my recon center, which falls just into my survival radius. Any further out, and we would be required to send a vessel to rescue you…and, well…that's kind of impossible right now."_

"Wait, are you _alone_?" now it was Shiro's turn to interrupt, unable to bite back his astonishment.

" _That's none of your business…but yes, I'm alone at the moment. Do you want to hear this other piece of good news?"_

Shiro shrugged, and then remembered the voice couldn't see him. "Yeah. Give it to me."

" _The other good news is that there are a couple of caves and natural shelters not too far from your position. I can guide you to them. If you hurry, you can take shelter in one of those until the storms pass and you can get moving again."_

The prospect of a full-fledged plan, however brief it was, was like a breath of fresh air in Shiro's lungs. Eyes locked on the peak, Shiro took his first few steps forward. "Alright," he said, "I'm listening. Guide me through it.

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	2. Chapter 2

It was a long, long trudge down the mountain. Shiro had turned off his coms to focus on balancing, as he had found it harder and harder to keep upright. His mechanical arm swung wildly and uncontrollably with each step he took, and Shiro would hardly be surprised if it just flew off his arm and disappeared into a snowbank. At the rate he was going, it probably would've helped him.

He'd gone about halfway down the mountain by now, his eyes firmly locked on the damaged peak in front of him. It was a long endeavor of half walking, half sliding, because he fell onto his face and rolled down a far bigger percentage of the mountain than he'd ever admit to. It was part of the reason Shiro had turned off his coms in the first place; he'd felt himself shrink in his armor at just the thought of the voice hearing him roll undignified down a mountain face. Not just once. Several times.

Damnit, it was so cold. Why couldn't he have landed on a warmer planet? His entire train of thought was on the comforting heat of the desert surrounding the Garrison, and then to the blissful warmth of the Castle of Lions. But here? Shiro's feet were probably already blue, and his left hand certainly couldn't be too far behind (Shiro had the feeling his tongue would stick to his prosthetic arm if he tried to lick it; Lance and Hunk probably would've paid to see it).

During his journey down, the sun had begun it's accent over the planet. It chased away the stars and pale streaks bled into the sky like coffee creamer. Shiro could pinpoint the sun's location—right between two of the taller peaks to his left, casting large shadows that threatened to swallow him and the rest of the land whole. Though he could see the sun rise, Shiro's armor notified him that the temperature had gone up very little. Wonderful. Now it was bitterly cold _and_ the sun would drain his energy. A perfect one-two punch.

After some time wandering down the side of the mountain, Shiro felt the snow beneath his feet begin to level off. There was definitely less of an incline from this point forward, which meant that he must've been reaching the base.

And that was when the snow began to fall.

The first thing he felt was the heat on his back begin to die down. Curious, when Shiro looked up, it was as if the clouds had been stalking him. Back on Earth, the snowstorms turned the sky a light gray, where sunlight could still penetrate. Here, the clouds were pitch black, almost as if it was night again. The snowflakes fell from the sky almost as soon as Shiro looked up. They were heavy and thick and large enough that Shiro could've cupped one in his hand. Feeling his stomach drop somewhere below his ankles, Shiro switched his coms back on. "Tu-Ni, are you there?"

" _There you are. I th-wait, what did you just call me?"_

"Well, your ID number ended with a two-nine, so I shortened it. Two-nine? Tu-Ni? Get it?"

Only dead silence greeted him on the other end of the line, and then Tu-Ni piped back up. " _You are a master of comedy, Holt,_ " they said dryly. " _Now, did you contact me to give me some important information that could pertain to your survival, or did you contact me just to give me a cheeky nickname."_

Shiro smirked despite himself. "Can't it be both?"

" _Focus, Holt. What's going on out there?"_

It was moments like that where Shiro really missed Lance.

Biting back a sigh, Shiro started reporting. "It just starting snowing. I figure I only have a few minutes before it becomes completely dark." He turned back around. "I'm about two thirds of the way down the peak I started on. Any idea of where I can go before I get snowed in?"

The sound of clacking keys was the only response. Tu-Ni mumbled something to themselves, then their voice materialized back in Shiro's ear. " _Alright listen. Do you see a….a dip in the snow? Like, a crater? It might be hard, but it should be somewhere to your left."_

Shiro craned his neck, trying to see over the piles of white that never seemed to change. The snow was seamless, unchanging. Besides, what little shadows there were had long since retreated as Shiro stood there. "I can't see anything. It's too dark," he confessed.

Shiro was pretty sure the next few words Tu-Ni uttered was some sort of elaborate curse, but he declined to comment. _"Alright. Fine. Uh…just walk_ _in that direction. Stay on the coms. Tell me what you see."_

"What, you mean besides a lot of white?" Shiro shot back.

Instantly, Shiro felt a stab of guilt. It wasn't like he meant it, but God, was he tired. Whatever had happened to him to get him here had sapped most of his energy, and what little had remained was sapped by climbing up and down a goddamned mountain. But he was tired, cold, and down to three functioning limbs (soon to be one; Shiro couldn't find any semblance of feeling in his feet) all in the course of one day. He obediently moved onward through the snow, brushing large flakes of the shoulder pads of his armor.

" _This wouldn't be happening if you'd contacted me a little earlier, you know,"_ Tu-Ni's voice echoed through his ears.

Shiro grimaced. "You sound a lot like a friend of mine, you know."

" _Does your friend usually try to help you get out of situations like this? Because I think I'm starting to see the resemblance."_

Shiro said nothing as he attempted to climb a snowbank. The silence was slightly stinging as his mind drifted to Allura, and what she would be doing to help him through this predicament. She and Tu-Ni probably would be riding the same train of thought, much as he hated to admit it, but there was at least a sense that Shiro could trust her input, however condescending it could be at times. On the other hand, Shiro didn't trust Tu-Ni as far as he could throw them.

Which, he reminded himself bitterly, wasn't very far anymore.

" _Are you going to answer me or not, Holt?"_ Tu-Ni piped up again as Shiro made his way over the snowbank.

Huffing, Shiro answered them, his voice remaining steady; "Do you want me to answer that honestly?"

" _Please do,"_ came the scathing reply, _"It'd the most interesting thing I've done in deca-pheebs."_

"Well, I thin-"

The world split under Shiro's feet before he could finish the sentence.

What was going to be a long, barbed speech about trust and teamwork suddenly transformed into an elongated scream as Shiro plunged into the surface of the planet. At first, there was nothing but darkness, but then his feet hit ice and buckled instantly. He fell to his back and slid rapidly down an incline, tumbling the entire way, rolling over and over and over until he thought he was going to faint from the whiplash. He could hear Tu-Ni's voice asking him what was going on before his helmet flew off his head and disappeared into the darkness.

He wasn't falling for too long, but Shiro certainly felt every second of his decent as he finally came to a skittering halt on a level piece of ice. He barely had time to process what had just happened before his ears picked up the rumbling of something large and deadly above him, like it had followed him down to his doom to finish off the job.

 _Move._ The command was short and sweet, and Shiro responded accordingly.

From his stomach, he activated his jetpack and felt himself slide forward across the icy floor like a rocket-powered human bobsled. It was just enough to escape the cascade of snow and ice that crashed upon the surface of where he just was. Shiro bounced off the ice as his jetpack deactivated, still sliding a few feet before he could use a few purchases in the ice to steady himself.

It was depressingly dark down here, and the flashlight that Shiro used to illuminate his surroundings somehow only made him feel worse. He'd fallen straight into a hollowed-out sanctuary under the planet's surface, and the snow and ice that had followed him down certainly would've made sure that he'd never find his way back up to the surface again, at least not back the way he came. Trembling, Shiro stood, nearly collapsing back onto the ice as his knees wobbled dangerously. His insides felt like a garbage disposal, and he felt a thousand times colder than when he was on the surface.

All of the sudden, he felt his guts give an awful jerk. Sensing the inevitable, Shiro stumbled over to the wall of the cave and emptied his stomach all over the floor. The echoes of his retching bounced off the ice like a never-ending chorus of bad decisions. It wasn't a long process, but much like his plummet down here, Shiro felt every single second of the endeavor. When he was done, he'd hoped that he'd feel better, but Shiro only felt tired and defeated.

He'd woken up on this planet buried under ice and snow, and now he was literally back to where he started.

Ha. Maybe he _should_ just roll over and die.

Once again, however, it seemed as though Shiro's body was at a total disagreement with the rest of him. He righted himself, peeling his eyes away from the mess he had made, and took his surroundings in.

His helmet had landed away from the cave-in, thank goodness, and stood upside-down against the opposite wall of the cave. Shiro skidded over to it and replaced it back on his head, only to be greeted by a panicked voice on the other end of the line. _"Holt?"_ the voice on the radio drilled into his ear. Shiro had a strong feeling that Tu-Ni had been calling his name non-stop for the past few minutes. " _Holt? You alright? Answer me!"_

"I'm h-here, I'm here," Shiro said weakly. "D-don't worry, I'm fine."

To Shiro's undying relief, it appeared that their previous argument had died the moment the ice gave way. The fear in Tu-Ni's tone might have been comical had his situation not been so dire. _"Fine!? You sound like you just got torn apart by a pack of Turgliors. What happened out there?"_

"Nothing unusual," Shiro couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice this time, "Just another instance of the universe trying it's best to get rid of me once and for all."

" _You know, I'd be inclined to laugh, but I'm going to need a little bit more information than that."_

Shiro waved his flashlight around. Before him stood a large hole in the ice where the cave continued. Even the bright lights on his left arm couldn't pierce the blackness. "The ice gave way under my feet," Shiro informed them. "I think it's dumped me into some kind of cave system. There's a large entrance in front of me."

There was the now all too familiar sound of Tu-Ni typing away at their keyboard, which Shiro was actually starting to find some sort of comfort in, surprisingly enough. _"According to the research left behind on this planet when we arrived, you've landed in some sort of ice mine. Apparently, the ice down here is super valuable—contains deposits of some sort of mineral called Pluxion. These mines have been long abandoned…but that's not necessarily a bad thing. We just need to find you an exit."_

"I'd prefer we'd find some sort of warmth," Shiro confessed. "I'm freezing, and it's probably not going to get any warmer down here."

Tu-Ni didn't respond for a moment, which, surprisingly enough, sent a wave of worry over him. If he'd learned anything about them, it was that Tu-Ni _always_ had something to say. _"Well… I can pull up some old maps—if I can find them, that is,"_ Tu-Ni finally answered him, sounding almost apologetic. _"But until I do that, I think you really only have one option, Holt."_

Shiro stared at the dark hole in front of him. A hole which seemed to swallow any light he shone on it, and offered nothing back in return. He took a deep breath to steady himself, but he only heard a shuddering gasp. "There's nothing down here, right Tu-Ni?" he asked warily, trying to keep his voice from wavering.

" _As far as I know, you and I are the only living creatures on this planet at the moment,"_ was the response he received.

Well, I guess that settled it.

"Okay," Shiro breathed out. "I'm going in."

" _You don't need to sound so grave, Holt. It's not like you're going to be walking right into the jaws of some ravenous creature that's got a taste for 'whatever-species-you-are' meat."_

This time, Shiro really did force out a laugh. "Knock on wood, I guess."

" _What?"_

"It's, uh, an expression. From, you know…where I'm from."

To Shiro's amazement, Tu-Ni sounded interested when they asked " _What does it mean, to knock on wood?"_

"Well, when someone says that something isn't going to happen, you say 'knock on wood' because that doesn't mean it's not _not_ going to happen. We usually also literally knock on a piece of wood nearby, and it means pretty much the same thing."

Tu-Ni let out a low hum of understanding, sounding almost wistful. _"Tell you what; I'll stay on the coms while you walk around. Think of it like a mutual exchange. I'll get info on this planet and the rest of your crazy Holt-sayings, and you can chat away to your heart's desire as to create the illusion of companionship. How's that sound?"_

Tu-Ni must've been feeling a lot better if they were already making jabs at him after just learning that he nearly died due to a cave-in. After following _their_ advice and direction, Shiro reminded himself. "Alright, deal. But if I don't make it out of here, I need you to make me a promise."

" _How morbid."_

"Listen, really," Shiro said. "If I don't make it out of here, I want you to find my friends and I want you to tell them what happened to me, alright? Can you do that for me?"

There was a very long pause on the other end of the radio, but Shiro knew that Tu-Ni hadn't left the line. They spoke up again after a while of process, but there was no hint of comedy in their tone anymore. Shiro didn't even think he'd ever heard them sound so concerned for his safety. _"That's, um…that's pretty heavy, Holt. I'm not going to lie to you."_

Shiro shrugged, even though he knew no one could see him. "I'm just being honest."

" _You know what? No. No, alright, you listen to me. I said I would help you, and I'm going to help you,"_ Tu-Ni said fiercely. _"You are not giving up now, you hear me? Do you really have that little faith in me? I_ never _go back on my words, Holt."_

"I never sai- "

" _No, Holt, alright?"_ Shiro was frankly shocked at how angry Tu-Ni was with him. _"I want you to stop it with that. No more 'I'm going to die' talk, okay? You aren't going to die. This is just a slight little setback, but you're not dead, and I can still hear you, which means I can still guide you through this. Now stop it with the noble, self-righteous talk and start moving through those caves."_

Shiro couldn't help but fire back "Wasn't it you that told me to walk in the direction that got me into this little setback?"

" _Yes, and I'm sorry. I didn't realize that the ice was so unstable."_ A pause. _"Holt, I'm sorry. I'm being serious."_

And yes, they did sound serious. A little too serious, so much so that he wondered if he'd touched upon something personal for Tu-Ni. Shiro looked back at the entrance to the ice mine that lay before him. Well, he would have plenty of time to ponder it all as he made his way through the cave system.

"Okay, I'm moving." Shiro said.

" _Good. I'll be on the line the entire time. Tell me something interesting while you go. Tell me about your friends."_

Shiro took his first few steps forward, squinting into the darkness. "Okay, fine, on one condition."

" _No, I am not going to relay them a message about your imminent death."_

"Not that. For everything that I say about myself, you have to tell me something about yourself. Deal?"

Tu-Ni grunted thoughtfully, but finally said, _"Deal. But don't expect anything personal. This isn't a sob fest, Holt."_

"I don't expect it to be."

And with that, Shiro entered the caves, letting the darkness wrap around him as he did so. One step at a time, with a flashlight on his wrist and a voice in his ears that prodded him for stories.


End file.
